Alaska Trip 2022 -- Day 9 Deep Bay bushwhacking lite and skiff ride

After many hours circling in Chatham Strait, we finally entered Peril Strait a little after midnight.  Our target for the day was Deep Bay, an inlet off of Peril Strait.  There were again multiple adventures to choose from.  Our activities for the day would be bushwhacking lite in the morning and a skiff ride in the afternoon.

GPS track for Day 9, August 4, is in black.

Bushwhacking lite.  Bushwhacking is a catch-all phrase for hiking without trails. Most of the bushwhacks thus far had sounded beyond our current comfort level, but today they introduced something new--bushwhacking lite. We decided to give that a try.

We took off in the skiff for a beach across Peril Strait from our anchorage in Deep Bay.

Riding the skiff on our way across the strait,

I am not sure why, but we had three guides with us on this trip.

Erin, Tara, and Britney led the way

There was a wet landing to start our bushwhacking lite adventure

We started with a walk on the beach.  

On the beach

As you can see in the picture above, the beach was covered with small plants.  Erin introduced us to beach asparagus, which is kind of a cross between asparagus and green beans.  They tasted salty (it was on a beach which had just been covered in seawater!), but was really quite good.  I could definitely see these on a salad. 

High grass between the beach and the tree line

Once beyond the high tide line, we were into tall grass.  Like everywhere else we had been, the surface was very rocky and a bit treacherous.

In the forest

Lots of plants.  Once we broke through the tree line it was a completely different world and smelled wonderful--I guess of pine.  It was a moss and fern wonderland,.

Mosses and ferns everywhere

 

Western skunk cabbage, a deer delicacy.  Note the nibbles off the end of the nearest leaf.

Some critters. It was not all plants.  We also saw some critters, or at least evidence that they had been there.

Pacific banana slug

We saw a Pacific banana slug.  It was much bigger than I had imagined.   I expected it to be yellow (the name and also UC Santa Cruz), but the yellow ones are a different species.

Lots of bear scat

 

We also saw bear scat.   From the size of the scat, I suspect the bear was larger than I would have imagined also.  Fortunately we did not run into any  bears in person.  Of course, that could have happened.  That is why we made plenty of noise and the guides carried bear spray.

 

The pink flower is Pacific coralroot, a perennial orchid

One of the more surprising things, at least to me, was a wild orchid.  I did not expect to see something like that in what I think of as "the frozen north".

I should point out that we were mostly following a bear social trail.  It was rarely as flat as these pictures indicate.  I think I stopped taking pictures much of the time because I needed my hands to maneuver over, around, and through things.  

In any case, we had fun and made it back in one piece in time for lunch.

Our motley crew of bushwhackers.  Yes, that is my cell phone around my neck--my camera for this adventure.

Skiff ride.  The afternoon's off ship adventure was a skiff ride. 

Day 9 in Deep Bay -- Endeavor's track in black, morning bushwhacking lite in green, skiff ride in yellow

The track for today's adventures are in the figure above.  Leaving the entire gps track in today's color (black) was confusing since there was so much overlap.  Therefore I highlighted this morning's bushwhack, including the skiff ride to the beach and back, in green and this afternoon's skiff ride in yellow.

As you can see from the skiff track in yellow, the skiff ride was a little crazy.  We did see some interesting things, but I only took my cell phone for a camera because I thought it was threatening to rain.  Therefore there is not much in the way of photographic evidence for what we saw.

Eagle's Nest.  First up was an eagle's nest in a tree near the edge of the water.  We were quite a distance away, but two adults were making quite a fuss and seemed very bothered that we were there. We did not see any juveniles, but I am sure the adults would not have been upset if there had not been little ones involved.

Whale.  Next someone spotted a humpback whale, so off we went for a closer look.  "Close" was a somewhat relative term, but we did see him.

Hump of a humpback whale in the strait

Humpback whale making his dive

We then got back on track and headed across the strait, where one of the crew spotted a mink jumping around on the ridge above the water.

The tiny black speck on the top of the ridge at the edge of the grass is a mink.

Yet a little bit further we saw a deer watching us from the shore. 

Sitka black-tailed deer in the grass just above the rocks.

This is a Sitka black-tailed deer.  He still has his reddish brown summer coat.

We turned into yet one more tiny inlet since it looked like there was a bear on the beach but it turned out to be a rock.

We weighed anchor just after the evening's talk by guide Tara on fungi. about 8:15.  We had a ways to go before dropping anchor just before 10 pm at the site of tomorrow's adventures, Sukoi Inlet.